THE RIVER PLATE DISTRICT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1687, 17 April 1886, Page 2

THE RIVER PLATE DISTRICT.

Latterly we have heard ranch of the River Plate district, and its great superiority to New Zealand. But it is a true saying that distant fields are greenest, and not a few who leave New Zealand for the Argentine Republic m order to grow rich rapidljr, will not find their expectations realisod. A young man who recnntly left Napier for the Riyftr Plate district is very sorry lie did ao. Writiug to a relative he says, " I wish very sincerely that I had never come here. Men on estancios (sheep-stations) get £50 a year, but things are very dear although labour is cheap. The sun plays " Qld Harry" with my head, wbich : gbeß thump, thump, for hoars, and nearly drives me mad. The heat is frequently 96 degrees m the coolest part of the house. I dare not go to sleep m the middle of the day, or 1 am like a lunatic when I awake." The writer m other ways gives a very bad report of the country except as a sphere for persons with large capital. Ho writes that he will not be safe till he eels a " sixshooter." He got employment at very low wages clearing docks from land, and "put m" the usual hours—from 4.30 m the morning until sunset. He complains pathetically that the place is "nothing like what the books and papers state," regrets that be was ever ''foolish enough to leave New Zealand, 1 ' and winds up with "Thank God Gr— — did not come." Young men dissatisfied with this colony, and thinking of going to South Atnerica " tor a change," would not find much inducement to do so if they they could read the letter from which we have made the above extracts.